RenderMan for Maya 2 ships

Pixar Animation Studios today announced two major releases of its RenderMan software, RenderMan Studio 1.0 and RenderMan for Maya 2.0. The company also unveiled a new licensing policy that delivers major performance increases on multi-core computers. RenderMan Studio is a major expansion of Pixar's render tool suite which includes a "pro" version of the RenderMan for Maya plug-in, major enhancements to the Slim graphical RenderMan shader editor, the Alfred dispatcher for managing network rendering, the "it" image compositing tool, and unrestricted RIB generation. RenderMan for Maya 2.0 is available on Windows XP and Mac OS X for $1,000 per license, while pricing for RenderMan Studio 1.0 starts at $2,000 per license and is available on Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux.

RenderMan Studio 1.0 directly interfaces with Pixar's RenderMan Pro Server 13.0, and an optional floating internal RenderMan Embedded Renderer is also available for either render preview or final output.

RenderMan for Maya 2.0 -- Pixar's advanced rendering plug-in for Maya -- introduces multi-threading, substantial increases in ray-tracing performance, improved fur, new camera effects, caustics, point based global illumination, and compatibility with Maya 8.5.

New licensing

Both RenderMan Studio 1.0 and RenderMan for Maya 2.0 incorporate a new licensing policy that permits up to four threads or four parallels renders per host machine, which can quadruple performance on a per-fram basis, according to Pixar.

by MacNN Staff